Looking at the spacing of the poppy seeds, I don't think you could have done better. The 9:00AM and 3:00PM readings were close but they were both around 100% in terms of increase in volume, just as we were hoping. I estimate that the 1 hour and 45 minute temper time added about another 18-20% increase in volume from the 3:00PM reading. At this point, it looks like the increased finished dough temperature and maybe the short rest at room temperature before going to the refrigerator helped. I think it also helped that you have pretty stable temperatures in your deli case.

It also looks like using the pizza screens helped reduce the bottom crust browning. Next time, to get a bit more bottom crust browning than you got from using two screens, you might try using only one screen. But, overall, your pizza had the general crust coloration of a real PG pizza. As an example, you can compare your pizza with the one I once purchased from a PG store and showed at Reply 98 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8167.msg75762.html#msg75762.

The weight of your pizza, at 28 ounces, still seems to be on the low side. It might mean that you need more sauce and/or cheese blend on the pizza, or perhaps a real PG pizza has more cornmeal, but it might also be that your oven bakes differently than a revolving PG oven. It's up to you, but next time you might add a bit more sauce and more of the cheese blend. If you are happy with the flavor of the cheese blend, you could go to 9 ounces for the next test. If you'd like, I can help you with the weights of the three cheeses for that amount of blend.

At least you now have a regimen for the PG clone dough that you can use regularly at market. You may still need to do some occasional adjustment to compensate for seasonal temperature variations, but I would expect such changes to be minor. Changes might also be needed if you decide to go with a much larger batch size than just a single dough ball since your deli case would be trying to cool several dough balls at one time rather than just one.

Thanks again for going through all of the trouble of babysitting your latest PG clone dough ball.

I forgot to mention in my last post that the rim of your latest PG clone pizza was smaller than your previous PG clone pizzas. What we don't know is if it was because of the use of the pizza mold or the use of the screens and their effect of reducing oven spring. This is something that can be resolved through future tests with and without the screens.

Looking at the spacing of the poppy seeds, I don't think you could have done better. The 9:00AM and 3:00PM readings were close but they were both around 100% in terms of increase in volume, just as we were hoping. I estimate that the 1 hour and 45 minute temper time added about another 18-20% increase in volume from the 3:00PM reading. At this point, it looks like the increased finished dough temperature and maybe the short rest at room temperature before going to the refrigerator helped. I think it also helped that you have pretty stable temperatures in your deli case.

It also looks like using the pizza screens helped reduce the bottom crust browning. Next time, to get a bit more bottom crust browning than you got from using two screens, you might try using only one screen. But, overall, your pizza had the general crust coloration of a real PG pizza. As an example, you can compare your pizza with the one I once purchased from a PG store and showed at Reply 98 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8167.msg75762.html#msg75762.

The weight of your pizza, at 28 ounces, still seems to be on the low side. It might mean that you need more sauce and/or cheese blend on the pizza, or perhaps a real PG pizza has more cornmeal, but it might also be that your oven bakes differently than a revolving PG oven. It's up to you, but next time you might add a bit more sauce and more of the cheese blend. If you are happy with the flavor of the cheese blend, you could go to 9 ounces for the next test. If you'd like, I can help you with the weights of the three cheeses for that amount of blend.

At least you now have a regimen for the PG clone dough that you can use regularly at market. You may still need to do some occasional adjustment to compensate for seasonal temperature variations, but I would expect such changes to be minor. Changes might also be needed if you decide to go with a much larger batch size than just a single dough ball since your deli case would be trying to cool several dough balls at one time rather than just one.

Thanks again for going through all of the trouble of babysitting your latest PG clone dough ball.

Peter

Peter,

I was half surprised that you could know how much the spacing of the poppy seeds would be on Tuesday. Was that from your own calculations, or did Novembers ideas help you. I was glad the poppy seeds spacing was about right for the PG clone dough ball to have doubled in the 4 day cold ferment time frame.

I will try only one pizza screen in my next attempt.

My oven probably does bake differently than a revolving PG oven, but I can add a bit more sauce and more of the cheese blend the next time. I also didnít get all of the sauce out of the container from where it was weighed. It is just too hard to do that and some sauce also stuck to the ladle that the sauce was applied from. I donít know if the water in the sauce from it being frozen also added to a weight loss when it was baked on the PG pizza. I think if the pictures from last week are look at the sauce did look thicker. What amount of sauce do you suggest I try next? I am happy with the flavor of the cheese blend, but do need help with the weights of the three cheeses blend if I go with 9 ounces the next time, if that isnít too much trouble for you.

Thanks for the link to the PG pizza you purchased so I could see what the general crust coloration looked like.

I know I have a good regimen now for the PG clone dough if I want to use it at market. I really donít think my cooler at market has a hard time cooling down dough balls, because they are just in plastic bags.

I forgot to mention in my last post that the rim of your latest PG clone pizza was smaller than your previous PG clone pizzas. What we don't know is if it was because of the use of the pizza mold or the use of the screens and their effect of reducing oven spring. This is something that can be resolved through future tests with and without the screens.

Are you having fun with the pizza mold and are you finding it useful?

Peter

I also thought the rim of my latest PG clone pizza was smaller then my previous PG clone attempts. It is interesting that we donít know if that was from the use of the pizza mold, or the use of the screens.

I am having fun with the pizza mold, but didnít get to try it out a lot yesterday on my regular dough balls. Maybe next week.

I was half surprised that you could know how much the spacing of the poppy seeds would be on Tuesday. Was that from your own calculations, or did Novembers ideas help you. I was glad the poppy seeds spacing was about right for the PG clone dough ball to have doubled in the 4 day cold ferment time frame.

Norma,

It's a combination of understanding the principles involved, which come largely from November's work, and developing a sixth sense that comes with experience. The math in this case was very simple, as I noted at Reply 344 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8167.msg216326.html#msg216326, but I needed a data point somewhere along the fermentation process, in this case, the measurement of the spacing between the poppy seeds. Once I saw the extent of the change in the spacing of the poppy seeds by Monday when you were at market, that gave me an idea as to the rate of expansion of the dough and where the dough was likely to end up at the end of the planned fermentation period if nothing changed from that point, like moving the dough ball from one cooling unit to another with a different temperature. My "sixth sense" told me that we were very likely to be very close to where we wanted to be by 3:00PM on Tuesday. I also knew that if we were off, it would be very little. Since temperature is a variable factor that we can't always control to the degree we would like, the next time the results might be different. But I would hope that the endpoint would be close to what you achieved with your most recent PG clone dough.

What amount of sauce do you suggest I try next? I am happy with the flavor of the cheese blend, but do need help with the weights of the three cheeses blend if I go with 9 ounces the next time, if that isnít too much trouble for you.

Norma,

Next time you might go with 6.5 ounces of pizza sauce, by weight. As for the cheese blend, 9 ounces of that blend based on a ratio of 75/23/2 translates into 191.4 grams of low moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese, 58.7 grams of white aged cheddar cheese, and 5.1 grams of grated Romano cheese. These changes will add about another ounce to the pizza weight after baking. That may still result in a somewhat underweight pizza but without more data on typical PG cheese pizzas, and considering that your oven may not bake the same as a PG oven, it is hard to say what the real number should be for your clones.

It's a combination of understanding the principles involved, which come largely from November's work, and developing a sixth sense that comes with experience. The math in this case was very simple, as I noted at Reply 344 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8167.msg216326.html#msg216326, but I needed a data point somewhere along the fermentation process, in this case, the measurement of the spacing between the poppy seeds. Once I saw the extent of the change in the spacing of the poppy seeds by Monday when you were at market, that gave me an idea as to the rate of expansion of the dough and where the dough was likely to end up at the end of the planned fermentation period if nothing changed from that point, like moving the dough ball from one cooling unit to another with a different temperature. My "sixth sense" told me that we were very likely to be very close to where we wanted to be by 3:00PM on Tuesday. I also knew that if we were off, it would be very little. Since temperature is a variable factor that we can't always control to the degree we would like, the next time the results might be different. But I would hope that the endpoint would be close to what you achieved with your most recent PG clone dough.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for explaining that understanding the principles, in addition to your sixth sense, is how you knew that we would be close, or right on the target on Tuesday at 3:00 PM. I can understand that the final dough temperature and the temperature in the cooler are important.

Next time you might go with 6.5 ounces of pizza sauce, by weight. As for the cheese blend, 9 ounces of that blend based on a ratio of 75/23/2 translates into 191.4 grams of low moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese, 58.7 grams of white aged cheddar cheese, and 5.1 grams of grated Romano cheese. These changes will add about another ounce to the pizza weight after baking. That may still result in a somewhat underweight pizza but without more data on typical PG cheese pizzas, and considering that your oven may not bake the same as a PG oven, it is hard to say what the real number should be for your clones.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for telling me to use 6.5 ounces of pizza sauce in the next PG attempt and for doing the calculations for each amount of cheese in grams for the cheese blend.

Since the local weathermen are keeping an eye on hurricane Sandy in our area, I am not making a PG clone dough ball this morning. A hurricane in our area depends on when the hurricane turns, but the weathermen in our area are saying it looks ominous for our area right now and it could start raining on Sunday and continue until Thursday. If a strong storm impacts our area I know I probably wonít be going to market.

To start a PG clone dough ball today is not of much use, unless I should try to bake the PG clone dough ball in my home oven, or wait to see if the hurricane impacts our area.

The following Wednesday the 7th of November my brother from Colorado is coming to visit for a week, so I am not sure if I will make a PG clone dough ball that week either.

Just found a source for Spring King flour about 20 minutes away. They must be a small bakery distributor as they don't have a website, I'll grab a product list while I'm there. Always fun to find new food sources.

Yes, I would say that that formulation is a good one to start with. That formulation is intended for a three-day cold fermentation period, with the goal of having the dough about double in volume by that time. However, the actual results will depend on the temperature of your refrigerator during fermentation. You might use the poppy seed trick and watch the spacing as the dough expands in volume. When the spacing goes from 1" (the starting spacing) to about 1 1/4", that would represent a doubling. But even a tripling in volume will work.

If you use the poppy seed trick and you are able to monitor the spacing until the dough doubles in volume, you might want to note the time that it took for the dough to reach that point, along with your refrigerator temperature. You might also note when the dough went into the refrigerator and its finished dough temperature. These numbers might tell us how to adjust the yeast quantity to better fit your particular situation, or maybe even a different one.

I don't have a gas oven so I can't say how the pizza will bake in such an oven. So, from a baking standpoint, I would treat the pizza as you would another one, such as a NY style, for example. As far as the stone is concerned, I think I would go with the FibraMent stone.

Another PG clone dough ball was mixed this morning. The PG clone dough was finished mixing right after 11:00 AM. The final dough temperature was 80.5 degrees F. The dough was scaled back to 16 ounces. I left the dough ball sit out for 15 minutes then put it in the fridge. I will take the PG clone dough ball over to market today.

This experiment for a PG clone pizza was one that went badly wrong and was one I could have kissed goodbye. I sure donít know what I did wrong, but the PG clone dough ball did ferment too much in 4 days. The dough ball did have a big bubble on it and was then just cut and left to sink on itself. The dough was then room temperature fermented for 1 Ĺ hrs. and did develop another smaller bubble on the side. The dough mold was used and the skin opened well, with no thin spots that I could see. It was then placed on a 16Ē screen, dressed and put into the oven. I sure donít know why, but after I thought the skin was set in the oven I went to use the metal peel to take the pizza off of the screen. Well, the pizza had stuck in one place and I knew it was going to present a problem, so I just left it on the screen for the whole bake. The resulting pizza weighed 1 lb. 11.3 ounces or 773 grams right out of the oven. There was decent rim browning. I did use the recommended cheese blend amounts and also the amount of sauce Peter recommended last week.

Since the pizza had an almost white bottom crust Steve and I put our slices in the oven to see if the bottom might become browner. It did, but then the slices didnít taste good. The rim tasted like cardboard and surely didnít taste like it was fermented for so long. Steve and I also tried a slice that was just given a quick warm-up in the oven, but those slices also really tasted bad. The cheese blend was good though.

What in the world are you doing over there Norma!?! Actually, that pie looks down right tasty. That last pic is a beauty. You definitely get a big A+ for effort...sorry it didn't work out for you though.

What in the world are you doing over there Norma!?! Actually, that pie looks down right tasty. That last pic is a beauty. You definitely get a big A+ for effort...sorry it didn't work out for you though.

Bob,

The top of the PG clone pizza did look okay, but I think the bottom crust ruined it. Steve even said the crust tasted like cardboard.

life got into the way of my jumping into this thread, finally got the Spring King flour, mixed up yesterday, poppy seeds are 1 1/4" apart at 25 hours (I need to get a thermometer for the fridge). I won't be able to bake them today so I'm hoping it slows down a little, I'm going to move them to the fridge downstairs that gets less use. I have mainly worked with KA flours and the Spring King is so different feeling, I can't wait to see how it bakes up.